SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)- Alternative media should appeal to the US people’s “compassion” to better communicate what the mainstream media does not want them to know about Washington’s atrocities in the Middle East, says a former American intelligence linguist.

Scott Rickard made the remarks in a Saturday interview with Press TV while he was commenting on a report about the death of at least four children by US airstrikes in Syria’s Idlib province earlier.

Rickard called the report “another sad story about innocent people being killed by a very powerful military machine that drives economies and people around the world to do horrific activities.”

On Friday, US airstrikes against Syria’s western town of Harem killed a number of civilians including the children.

As many cannot associate such reports to their personal experience, “I would say one of the things that we could do to help stop this kind of thing is to appeal to the people’s compassion more gently and try to communicate with the society as whole,” Rickard said.

“Sadly, most people aren’t looking at reports like this one,” he noted, adding, instead what they get is a “completely different perspective of misinformation,” so they are “not able to process” the suffering being caused by the US “because that’s not the way it is presented to them.”

Rickard further likened the report to the “suspicious death” of Serena Shim, Press TV’s correspondent in Turkey, which made “no headlines” in the US mainstream media despite the fact that she was an American citizen.

“She was obviously an innocent person,” said the activist, noting, the children’s killing will not be condemned “just like” Serena’s death as the US media is in “such a controlled environment.”

“The compassion for the pain and suffering for others that we are not closely related to is commonly overshadowed by misinformation and fear maintained and perpetuated by our government, media, and educational system,” said the American analyst.

Shim was on a mission on the Turkish side of the border across Syria’s strategic town of Kobani when she was trucked down. The Turkish intelligence agency had accused her of spying probably due to some of the stories she had covered about Turkey’s stance on the ISIL terrorists in Kobani.

Despite being “perpetually censored,” independent media such as Press TV and RT should “continue to appeal to compassion of individuals and try to present these stories without any bias and any type of derogatory commentary,” Rickard said.

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